little miss' turn

emily has been waiting patiently for months for her hair to be long enough to cut and donate to locks of love. she has wanted it cut like mine for so long but was willing to wait. she is so sweet and i am so proud of her for thinking of this. it just shows her heart. today was the day and she and i both had our hair done today. we had so much fun!
i will have to post better pictures of what she looks like tomorrow, but couldn't wait to get this up. the back of her hair is so cute and she can't stop playing with it and has combed her hair for probably a total of an hour just because it feels so new and neat to her that it is short!

happy wednesday!
a

signs of summer...

little man has a new "do"...

before... he has no idea what he's in for

where's my hair?

my tough guys!

sweet little man!

happy friday!
a

more graduation pics...

these are from saturday's graduation.

Congratulations Class of 2009!

Wednesday was so nice and the graduation was great! Everything worked out really well and we all ended up where we were supposed to be. Getting to and from the stadium was a bit of a mess logistically, but there's nothing wrong with a bit of exercise!

President Obama spoke at the graduation. Regardless of your own personal political views, it was a really neat experience to be in the same place as the President of the United States of America and his speech was pretty great. We had great seats, but the view of the podium was blocked by the speakers. Nick said that his view from the field was blocked with teleprompters, so I guess it didn't really matter where we sat, the big screens were probably the best way to see.

I didn't take my zoom lens becuase I was afraid that it would get broken in the crowds so I didn't get great close up pictures, but I wanted to share some of what I did get. I hope you all have a great weekend!

The individual school graduation is tomorrow and they will call Nick's name to go up and receive a fake rolled up diploma (they mail the real one), and I will definitely post pictures of that too!

Happy Friday!
a

I would try to point Nick out, but really... all that matters is that he's down there!

Pat (my stepdad), me, Susan (Nick's mom), Lindsey (Nick's sis), Barb (Nick's stepmom), Virgil (Nick's dad)
I thought it was funny that they asked people to turn off phones and pagers... who has a pager?

At the back of the stage, btw the two flags are Obama and the President of ASU

Obama speaking

Obama comissioned the ROTC graduates, which I thought was really neat. Gore spoke and comissioned Nick when he graduated from West Point. You can see all of the ROTC grads in from of the stage. Such brave men and women!

My graduate!

Maroon and Gold...

Today is such a special day for us; one that we have been looking forward to for two long years... today Nick graduates with his MBA from The WP Carey School of Business at Arizona State University!

Nick has always wanted to get his MBA, (I remember talking about it with him before he even graduated from West Point!) and two and a half years ago we made the decision that the time was right for our family. The kids were young and the two nights a week in class were "do-able" for us with little activities such as sports and school events. We knew that it would be really difficult at times and that there was no turning back and no giving up once we started... we were in it for the long haul.

I can't even begin to tell you how proud I am. Nick gave up so many things that he wanted or wanted to do because of school and he had the best attitude the entire time. There were countless days that he had to skip family funtions, stay up until midnight or later (on top of working full time and the four hours in class two nights a week), so many weekends given up for group projects and meetings, electives that he was in for four hours four nights a week and then eight hours on Saturday (during the holidays), and he would sit at the table or lock himself in our office when the only thing he wanted to do was play with the kids or sit back and relax. There was a week that he had to be in Tucson for a training session for work, but he also had to be at school in Phoenix on Tuesday and Thursday. He worked all day, drove the two hours to Phx for class then drove back to Tucson after class for training the next day. He made up classes when he traveled, which sometimes had him away every night of the week and he studied while on business trips instead of enjoying time to himself or with his associates.

He walked a fine line with a smile on his face and I could write all day about all of the sacrifices that he made for this dream, but I can't tell you what this has meant for our family and I will never be able to put into words how proud I am of him for this!

Go Devils!
a

happy monday!

i'm kind of a monday girl. i like the start to a new work (or not) and school week. i like that it feels like a fresh start with so many things to do throughout the week and i'm ready to begin! so many great opportunities to laugh, have fun, be kind, take pictures, smile, play, show the love of Jesus to others, smile, give thanks, read, plant flowers, smell flowers...

my cuties on easter

i love my flowers

happy monday!
a